By Frederic Morton, from a speech given at the Vienna Haus der Barmherzigkeit two days before he died, in April. Morton was a critic, an essayist, and the author of several novels. His essay “The Seductive Catastrophe” was published in the August 2014 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Translated from the German by Nicholas Nardini.

My first exile was leaving my geographic homeland. I grew up in Hernals right near the border of Ottakring, on Thelemanngasse. I wrote a novel about this tiny alley called The Forever Street — in German, Ewigkeitsgasse. It wasn’t easy. When I tapped “Shut up, you idiot!”…